Ethiopia to bridge electricity connectivity gap with new substations

Over 70% of people in Ethiopia have no access to electricity. Although the grid covers about 60% of the towns in the country. To bridge electricity connectivity gap, the country is setting up new substations

This gap necessitates for the government to seek various partnerships that will assist in connecting this number of people to the national grid. At the moment, global power firm, GE Grid Solutions announced it has completed a US $40m electricity transmission system improvement turnkey project in collaboration with the Ethiopian Electric Power.

The project will raise access to electricity by transferring bulk electric power to the southern and south-western parts of the country. The company noted that new substations will also help reduce technical losses in the transmission system in the medium term.

“This project will support overall electrification plans of Ethiopia, provide sustainable power and allow the transmission of reliable power from the interconnected system to demand centres across the country and in the region”, said Wudineh Yemane, project manager at Ethiopian Electric Power.

“It will facilitate the implementation of the Universal Electrification Access programme as well as government’s ambition to export energy to Sudan,” Yemane added.

Reducing high transmission losses

Lazarus Angbazo, regional leader for GE’s Grid Solutions Business in sub-Saharan Africa, underlined that there is an urgent need for household electrification and that the project will significantly reduce high transmission losses while improving system efficiency, stability and reliability..

“GE has always been a committed partner to Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP), and we are honoured to be able to deliver the largest number of substations to EEP on a turnkey basis with this project,” said Lazarus.